The Ability of the ACT and MCPT to Predict the College Grade Point Average. Institutional Research Report 3-77.

Schade, Herbert C.

In order to determine the predictive ability of the standardized scholastic tests used at Crowder College (CC) with regard to academic achievement, the first-quarter grade point averages (GPA's) of two groups of freshmen were compared with their scores on the American College Testing Program Examination (ACT) and the Missouri College Placement Test (MCPT). Additionally, the scores of the Crowder students were compared to those of University of Missouri freshmen and of a national sample. Only 8% of the freshman class took the MCPT, while 21% took the ACT. The average scores of the 110 CC students who took the ACT were consistently below those of the University of Missouri and the national populations. The scores of the 43 CC students who took the MCPT were significantly lower than the median test scores for students entering the University of Missouri on four of the five MCPT segments. When the correlation coefficients between the first semester grades and the ACT scores were calculated, the ACT sub-test and composite scores showed poor to moderate correlation with GPA, with the composite score providing the highest correlation and the ACT mathematics score having the lowest correlation. The MCPT did not show any signficant correlations at the .01 level with GPA. (AYC)